I tend to have insomnia(really have no sleep the whole night) whenever I have something really important to do the next day. My mind will keep thinking unless I suppress it. And I could feel the pressure in my forehead. I think the tension in my forehead is the more important factor since my thoughts may not be very different from the other days.
Anyone have any suggestions? For example, what kind of asanas is recommended for an immediate relief? Currently I tried neti and it helps, but only a little.
Is meditating for the whole night recommended when this happen, in terms of my feeling the next morning? I don’t really care about the over-practice thing unless its effects are so immediate to dull my mind the next day.
Hi Alvin,
I’m sorry that I have no recommendation for asanas to help in this, but I was wondering if you had ever tried drinking a cup of valarian herb tea when you can’t sleep?
In my case and for a few friends it does seem to really help. I’ll warn you though, it is usually mixed with mint or something else because the smell is, well, awful. We affectionately call it ‘cow-pie’ tea. 
Hope you get some sleep soon!
Kathy
Alvin asked:
Is meditating for the whole night recommended when this happen, in terms of my feeling the next morning? I don’t really care about the over-practice thing unless its effects are so immediate to dull my mind the next day.
Usually it is not recommended, for general usage anyway. However, it has worked well for some people (like me).
Better usually, to set yourself up for falling asleep.
Three main tips:
(i) it’s obvious not to take coffee late, but don’t eat late either.
(ii) make sure you are sufficiently hydrated. A glass of water-- or indeed Valerian tea – about half an hour before bed-time may help. Caution about mint, however, which is a mild stimulant.
(iii) don’t try to get to sleep. Do some practice instead as you lie down with your eyes closed, which bores you to sleep.
One old practice that can work nicely to ‘bore you to sleep’ is counting sheep. However, in this modern life, counting sheep is not something that many of us are familiar with. I have a variant which is even more boring and effective.
This version I have is a variant I have made of something I learned from “Silva Mind Control” about 20 years ago. I’ve simplified it down to its bare essence, and add a recommendation of a preparatory drill.
First, I recommend that at some point you do a preparatory drill with a blackboard or whiteboard. The actual practice is just to do the same thing as in the preparatory drill, but in your imagination, as you lie down.
The preparatory drill isn’t essential, but it is useful. If you can’t get a whiteboard and markers, a blackboard and chalk works nicely – so actually does a pencil, paper and eraser as a subsitute, which are available to nearly everyone. It will be obvious how to substitute them for the whiteboard and marker.
So we’ll say you have a whiteboard and marker. You need about half an hour for the drill. Commit to the half hour, even if you don’t like it. Because what we are going to do during the half hour, is bore you in a comfortable way. You’ll remember this boredom when you repeat it in your mind later as you lie in bed, and it will help to bore you to sleep.
Clear the whiteboard, then, at a comfortable position, write, in capitals, carefully and neatly
SLEEPIER 999
Give yourself a few seconds to admire your lovely work, then take the marker and carefully overwrite the SLEEPIER again, letter by letter. Be careful not to go over the edge of the earlier letters – you want this to still look like it was only written once. If you do go over the edge and make a letter too fat, you can trim it with your finger. When you have gone over the SLEEPIER again, with the eraser, erase the last “9” of the “999” and replace it with an “8”, so you have
SLEEPIER 998.
Give yourself a few seconds to admire your lovely work, then take the marker and carefully overwrite the SLEEPIER again, letter by letter. Be careful not to go over the edge of the earlier letters – you want this to still look like it was only written once. If you do go over the edge and make a letter too fat, you can trim it with your finger. When you have gone over the SLEEPIER again, with the eraser, erase the last “8” of the “998” and replace it with an “7”, so you have
SLEEPIER 997.
Give yourself a few seconds to admire your lovely work, then take the marker and carefully overwrite the SLEEPIER again, letter by letter. Be careful not to go over the edge of the earlier letters – you want this to still look like it was only written once. If you do go over the edge and make a letter too fat, you can trim it with your finger. When you have gone over the SLEEPIER again, with the eraser, erase the last “7” of the “997” and replace it with an “6”, so you have
SLEEPIER 996.
…
SLEEPIER 990…
SLEEPIER 989…
etc.
When you first do the drill, within the half-hour for which you commit, you might get down to SLEEPIER 950 or so, depending on how slowly you go.
Now for the practice. You want to get to sleep at night. What you do is simply follow that practice again, but you do it again in your minds eye. Go through it at the speed you actually did it, and visualize it as well as you can.
Don’t worry if you forget which number you were at. Just go back to 999 if you do.
BO-RING! 
Nice David…
Yes, Alvin this method works… I used to have trouble sleeping… after I did Silva’s mind control and practiced a similar technique… I have never had trouble sleeping… Once you get good at it you start counting from 100 down… then 50 down… now I start 10 down… I think I fall asleep before I hit 8
Along with the 3 tips David wrote… one more from my daughter’s neurologist (my daughter cannot sleep at night either)…
Don’t watch TV just before bed… the flashing lights excite the brains. Its better to read a little.
Hi Alvin,
You could try anulom vilom for about 10 mins before you close your eyes.
L&L
Dave
‘the mind can see further than the eyes’
http://cdbaby.com/cd/omdasji
http://dhyanyogi.omdasji.googlepages.com/home
Thank yoga, Kathy. I’ve googled the Valerian Root out. As far as you know, will it paralyze my mind like the western sleeping pills?
Taste is not an issue for me. I’ll bear anything if I can fall into sleep at those crucial moments! (though I convince myself that such extreme thoughts will only awake me)
David wrote:
Do you mean that you’ve tried meditating for all night without sleeping, and end up feeling well the next whole day just as if you’ve had a good night sleep?
I’ll rehearse your sleepier method tomorrow night. I tried feeling my body parts but always end up thinking about something else and “stuck” there. Indeed feeling body parts seems to need more concentration and that may be bad for my purpose.
Actually, I was so frustrated when I can’t fall into sleep that I tried many ways, like meditating lying on bed. The yoga nidra script I use can usually bore me into sleep, but not in those days! They work and I feel like almost falling into sleep. Then I lost the mantra (or the visualization) and drift off to thoughts without my knowledge. I ended up with such a weak but still conscious mind and yet I felt so away from a resting sleep.
I am so sensitive to coffee that even 100ml at 4:00pm will keep me awake until 4:00am !!
when i can’t sleep i read the bible in bed. puts me right to sleep every time
Alvin, when you cannot sleep, have you tried doing the Corpse pose (shavasana)? That might help.
Alternate nostril breathing sometimes calms you down.
Biochemic medicine Kali Phos 1 m is supposed to be good for calming the nerves.
Since you said you are ready to try anything… here are a few I have never tried…
Heat a tea spoon of regular salt in a pan till it is brown/gray… Put a pinch of it on your tongue every 15 mins. 4-8 times(never tried it… if you do, let me know if it works).
This is from an acupressure book.
Clasp hands tightly interlocking the fingers. Then with left hand fingers press on the back of the right hand and then with right hand fingers press on the back of left hand. Repeat 5 to 12 min at night in bed to cure insomnia.
If I can’t sleep I get up and do a partial head stand. A full head stand work but at that time I prefer keeping my toes on the floor with legs straight.
When I do this I can feel the sensitivity in the crown easing and relaxing. When I go back to bed I always fall asleep.
Best of luck
Louis
One more thing Alvin, the technique David has described above… you have to do every night… not just durings the nights you cannot sleep… This way you are training your mind to fall asleep when you count… Correct me if I am wrong David…
Well, yes, there is a good point there: it gets more effective if you do it every night.
But for people who don’t have strong insomnia, it can be useful too even if only done on some nights. It depends on how bad the insomnia is. So someone who suffers from frequent or strong insomnia would be well-served by doing it every night, so it reaches its maximum effectiveness.
If I do it, I’m often out by only one or two cycles. Which means getting to sleep in about one minute!
Alvin said:
Do you mean that you’ve tried meditating for all night without sleeping, and end up feeling well the next whole day just as if you’ve had a good night sleep?
No. What would happen to me is that I would get sleepy after meditating for a long time. Eventually I would be falling asleep as I meditate and I’d jump into bed and be off. It doesn’t necessarily work this way for everyone, so it’s not generally recommended.
Lots of great suggestions hee! I get bored and sleepy just reading your post, David. I’m with Victor - nothing induces deep sleep like a chapter of Leviticus.
Hi Alvin,
no, to answer your question, just drink a little of the herb tea and it won’t leave your mind groggy or affect its clarity in any way. It’s as much a SMELL issue (phew) as a taste issue with that tea to get it down.
By the way, other natural aids include foods with L-Tryptophan such as ripe bananas, warm milk and turkey… but I wouldn’t buy any supplement with tryptophan—I seem to remember some health risk from the supplements that came out some years ago.
ummm warm milk and bananas! 
Kathy
Kathy, if I remember rightly, eventually it was found that the health risk was not due to L-tryptophan, but to impurities in certain batches of L-tryptophan, traced to a particular manufacturer. I believe L-tryptophan is considered safe again.
One angle I heard from a martial arts trainer was to regard this kind of sleeplessness as a natural psych-up mechanism that is very much to your advantage. Just use the energy to totally focus the mind in fun, victorious visualizations. He had won many high level matches and one world title using this technique. Knowing that this level of focus has great benefits, you no longer regard wakefulness as negative and thus misinvest the energy on creating negative outcomes. I think a lot of athletes could benefit by adapting this perspective.
That might have value for someone who has to peak only occasionally, and is ready to reach their peak occasionally in fight-or-flight, which is what athletic competition is about (it simulates the historical, evolutionary need for human beings to survive occasionally in battle).
But with modern human beings who are not professional athletes, the much more common problem is excess fight-or-flight (which never properly resolves) going on in the body, in a life-environment which exerts pressure towards consistent and steady (as opposed to occasional peak) performance; what’s worse, for most of us (definitely including Alvin) the performance required is mental, which is worse impaired by loss of sleep than physical performance is.
Another note: if some sleep is lost on a particular night, the body uses reserves the next day and not much performance is lost. Unless the deficit of sleep is made up the next night, however, performance is significantly impacted the day after that. (In other words, it’s on the second day after loss of sleep that performance is worst affected by the sleep loss, not the first).
Translation: Alvin, get your sleep if your performance and survival needs are not those of a professional athlete who occasionally needs to do a one-day competion.
I’m very sensitive to caffeine also. All the other methods sound better than this, but I have a brute-force backup method for when nothing else works.
i get a generic (non-prescription) sleeping pill from the drug store. It has to have “doxylamine succinate”. None of the others work for me, natural or otherwise. They are 25mg, but half of one does the trick. Takes one hour to take effect, and you have to lay or sit still after that hour. if you’re active you won’t feel it. But if you lay still it knocks you out quite comfortably. I don’t have any side effects, other than being sleepy the next morning if I sleep less than 5 or 6 hours.
I know it’s not natural, but sometimes I’ve had caffeine, and absolutely have to get to sleep.
Meditation while the pill is taking effect seems normal, also.
Thank you David. You’re right, I’m sure about the tryptophan supplements. But, I’ll stick to my frozen banana smoothies!!
Kathy
Thanks everyone. I think I may have to try many techniques here in one night if I really cannot sleep.
A few more questions about the “SLEEPIER” technique:
Do I have to visualize clearly every numbers and letters in the actual practice? Or is it enough just to have a vague image?
Do you think I should translate “SLEEPIER” into my own language? Chinese words are more complicated than English, but on the other hand the hypnotic effects may be better if I use my own language. (??)
Hi Alvin,
visualizing clearly may help just because it is more WORK to do and adds to your tedium and helps to bore you. But it is not critical, so don’t stress if you are not a good visualizer.
I don’t actually think the hypnotic effect as important as the sheer boredom of the repetition. So I don’t think the word used is so important. What is useful is that the word is long enough that the number of ‘strokes’ is not too small and it takes long enough to write. But they are my theories which could be trumped by your own experimentation…